Learning Through Life

As you are aware, my family recently bought a house that happens to have a few established fruit trees.  One of those trees is a banana tree.  The day we moved our camper onto the property we noticed that part of the banana tree had fallen over, so we cut off the bananas and brought them inside to ripen.

Over the weekend the kids and I shared a banana to see what we thought.  It was pretty good.  The fact that we had another 8 small bananas left that were close to ripe necessitated that yesterday was the day I decided to make them into banana bread (Our family loves banana bread but we're not big fans of eating bananas in their natural form).

When my son saw me getting out all the supplies, he decided he wanted to do it "all by himself."  He let his little sister help with a few things but he did everything else by himself.  He read the directions,

measured the ingredients, mixed everything together, and put everything in the pan.  I was the one to get the pan into and out of the oven but the rest was him.  I watched to make sure the measurements weren't off but I never once had to correct him.

You see, I made sure to give him a measuring cup that was smaller than what was called for.  When it called for 2 Cups, I gave him 1/2 Cup and he had to figure out that he needed 4 of them to make 2 Cups.  After all, what better way to learn fractions than to actually DO something with fractions?

I know my teaching method right now is not at all typical, but days like yesterday help prove (to me anyway), that what I'm doing is working just fine.

To all those people who've asked:

• Does he do math worksheets?  
• Do you have him practice writing?  
• Do you have him read much?

The answers are: not often, he types more than uses a pencil, and on occasion.

But you know what, my goal with teaching my son is to make sure he will be a contributing member of society who can take care of himself.  I can't think of a better way to do that, than to use everyday life as a learning opportunity.

Is my son a math wiz?  Not right now, but he's certainly on his way (the math he can do in his head astonishes me some times).  But you know what?  I think that when he finds what he wants to do, nothing will stop him from achieving that goal, even if it means doing math worksheets, writing with a pencil, or reading copious amounts of information about said subject.   We just haven't found the topic that interests him like that.... yet.  But as we explore everything there is out there, a little at a time, I'm sure we will get there.

The fact that he's volunteering to do things where he knows he has to do reading and math makes me think we will get there pretty soon.  He's even asked to use my computer for research a bit more often these days.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and my son doesn't need to learn everything in a day, a week, a month, or even a year either.  Hey, I'M not done learning!  In fact, my son teaches me new stuff all the time.

Oh, and the banana bread, is GREAT!  I think I'm going to go have another piece right now.  For the record, I'm kind of hoping his niche doesn't end up being baking.  I don't think my waist-line can handle it.

Success!

Anyone who knows me well, knows I like to bake.  And not just so I can eat the fruits of my labors, but because for some inexplicable reason, baking brings me a sense of peace and joy.

Well, the last few weeks in the camper have been a bit rough for me.  You see, I don't have my stand mixer with us (couldn't justify the space or weight).  That means that what I can do is quite limited.  A week or so ago I purchased a package of pre-made cookie dough.  We were all so excited to have fresh baked cookies for dessert.  Unfortunately, the bottoms burned before the tops even cooked all the way.  I ended up finding a way to salvage them but needless to say they were a disappointment.  The up side... the oven is so small I can only cook 6 cookies at a time so I still had plenty more for a later date. 

Being that I love to bake, and my husband loves to eat what I bake, we went in search of the problem.  Luckily it was an easy fix and we were able to bake up the rest of the cookie dough a few days later with no burning.  And today I baked cupcakes in preparation for my daughter's 5th birthday on Sunday (we have plans for tomorrow and I figured that if they didn't turn out, this would give me time to buy some).  Good news!  They turned out pretty good (I had to test one of course to make sure).

At one point, we were thinking of pulling out the oven and putting in a dishwasher.  As much as I love that idea; now that I can bake again...tough decision.